Excerpt:

3.1. Sub-Saharan africans

Who was surveyed?

The Sub-Saharan African respondents in the survey comprised diverse groups (see sample box) with different immigrant and ethnic backgrounds, but all of whom could be described as having a generic ethnic background that was essentially ‘Black African’ rather than North African: for example, Somalis in the Nordic countries (Denmark, Finland and Sweden); Sub-Saharan Africans in Ireland, France and Portugal; African immigrants in Malta who were identified

by interviewers as predominantly Sub-Saharan African; and Surinamese people in the Netherlands of Black African-Caribbean origin. It should be noted that while the latter groups are predominantly of ‘Black’ Sub-Saharan African origin in terms of racial composition (95% of Africans in Malta and 74% of the Surinamese in the Netherlands were classified as such), these groups included some non-Black Africans too (e.g. some North Africans in Malta).

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One interesting national sub-group within this aggregate Sub-Saharan group is Somalis, and therefore the reader can look at results separately for Somalis in the three Member States where they were surveyed.

In most Member States a high number of Sub- Saharan african respondents were crime victims; with the highest rates recorded in the Nordic countries of Denmark (49%) and Finland (47%), followed by Ireland (41%). Sub-Saharan Africans were frequently victims of crime in the Netherlands (35%), Malta (32%), Sweden (28%), and France (23%) (albeit at comparatively lower rates). The rate of victimisation of Sub-Saharan African respondents was lowest in Portugal (9%). With the exception of the Netherlands, where perpetrators of assault and threat tended not to be from the majority population, between 57% and 96% of victims attributed a racist motivation to their last experience of assault or threat.

Over a quarter (25%) of those interviewed in this general group (all countries considered) informed EU-MIDIS that they tended to avoid certain locations in their area for fear of being harassed, threatened or even attacked. Without the presence of such avoidance behaviour, the rate of victimisation for Sub- Saharan Africans would likely be higher.

The highest rate of those who reported their victimisation to the police was found in Sweden; where slightly more than one in three respondents (36%) informed the police about the latest incident. Those second most likely to report victimisation were the Surinamese from the Netherlands (33%), followed by Somalis in Finland (30%), and Sub-Saharan people in Portugal (24%). Reporting rates for the five crimes tested by this survey were the lowest in Denmark, France, Ireland and Malta (16-20%).

Finally, with respect to police stops, Sub-Saharan African respondents were by far the most likely to be stopped in Ireland in the 12 months preceding the survey interview: at 59%. This was followed by those living in France (38%) and the Netherlands (34%).

Policing was the lightest in Portugal and Malta, where less than one in 10 respondents were checked by police officers at all in the past 12 months. Perceptions of police profiling was highest in absolute terms (e.g. compared to all respondents) and in relative terms (compared to all stops) amongst Sub-Saharan African interviewees in France (20% perceived profiling and 38% were stopped by the police). In most other countries less than half of those who were stopped felt they were singled out because of their ethnic background. (…)